James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

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Imaginative Realism

Dinotopia: The World Beneath

"A ravishing, action-packed adventure." —Smithsonian. Now with 32 extra behind-the-scenes pages. Signed by the author/illustrator

Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara

160 pages, fully illustrated in color. Written and illustrated by James Gurney. Signed by the author

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Monday, May 10, 2010

According to Locus Online and Comic Book Resources, fantasy and comics artist Frank Frazetta has died of a stroke at the age of 82.

Frazetta revived the field of fantasy art with a fresh sense of the iconic image, drawn from his own vivid sense of drama and conflict. His moon maidens, thundering dragons, and sword-wielding barbarians took on a powerful life of their own, which shaped the imagination of many artists working today, me included.

I had the privilege of working as a background painter on his animated film Fire and Ice, released from Baskhi productions in 1983 (poster image above). We always tried to get Frank to give the studio a class on figure drawing and composition, but he never did, probably because much of what he did was intuitive. That intuition, combined with a fierce confidence in the power of pure imagination, made his images unforgettable and truly immortal.

It is really sad that one of the most important fantasy artists has passed away. I really loved his work. At the 12th or 13th class at school we had to present an artist and one of his or her works at the art course. I choosed Frank Frazetta because I was so deeply impressed by his work and made an hour-long presentation and artistic analyse of "Conan chained". It was probably the most unconvential artist and painting presented in the class. It is still sad that even great art as those of Frazetta is often not seen as real art, but more as some kind of pulp. The paintings of Frazetta have nearly never really kitschy elements, all things look plausible. The way in which he painted reminded me often to some degree to the works of Burian, especially to the paintings of Burian which show early man confronted with prehistoric beasts, or his depictions of people from bronze-age cultures, which sometime really look similar to stereotypic barbarians. I really love the movie "Fire and Ice" and have watched it for many times. Of course the story is not, well, that profound, but it is still a great movie. Especially the backgrounds which are painted with so much love to all the wonderful little details, and this phantastic fantasy world with its countless amazing and deadly inhabitants. Some of the animations like those of the growing glaciers looks somewhat funny, but many of the other animations made by by motion-capturing are among the best I have ever seen at animated movies, especially the scenes with horses.

James, would you ever consider doing a feature on your backgrounds for Fire and Ice? Im interested in becoming a background painter or layout artist myself and I'm wondering what special things you had to consider when you were designing. You visited my school (RMCAD) a while ago and signed my Chandara book. If you have the time, check out my portfolio!